A software component makes it possible for medical systems (e.g., angiography devices) to independently report system faults or deviations from standard operation to a remote maintenance center or service center.
The published patent application DE 10 2004 045743 A1 describes remote maintenance of imaging devices, for example. Such devices are often maintained, within the scope of a first service level, by the clinic's own service technicians who, in the event of the occurrence of more specific or more complex problems, access the support of the respective manufacturer or specialized service companies within the scope of higher service levels by remote maintenance. A number of potential technical problems may be attributed to causes that may be identified in a relatively simple manner and may accordingly be frequently rectified in a simple manner. Such problems (e.g., main cable not plugged in or printer ink empty) may be solved in situ without special device knowledge. In such cases, consumables may be purchased if necessary. More complex problems may also be identified by unspecialized service technicians in situ, i. In such a case, a test routine is to be executed under certain circumstances. The routine is to be executed in order to exclude possible but irrelevant causes of a problem or to trace back to the actual cause.
The systems therefore enable remote maintenance such that parameter values of particular monitoring parameters provided for this purpose are collected and remotely transmitted by corresponding sensors. In order to directly carry out checks on the device (e.g., the execution of fault search trees), in order to locate a problem, a service technician directly carries out the above-described test measures on the device in situ according to service documentation. In accordance with the service documentation, the service technician processes instructions from the fault search tree and carries out checks. The results of the checks lead to the identification of the cause of a problem through the branches of the search tree.
If such maintenance operations are carried out by service technicians, experience shows that system deviations from standard operation caused by maintenance and thus messages in the remote maintenance center result while the work is being carried out on the medical system. The messages give rise to measures in the remote maintenance center (e.g., making contact with the affected customer, planning further service technician operations). Since several thousand medical systems may be connected to a remote maintenance center, these system messages are disruptive.